The Big Time, Fritz Leiber [book recommendations website TXT] 📗

bum jokes. But I ask you, how could an arrangement between Illy and me be anything but Platonic?

We might have had some octopoid girls and nymphs in stock⁠—Sid couldn’t be sure until he checked⁠—but Ilhilihis and Sevensee voted for real people and I knew Sid saw it their way. Maud squeezed Mark’s hand and tripped over to Sevensee (“Those are sharp hoofs you got, man”⁠—she’s picked up some of my language, like she has everything else), though Beau did frown over his shoulder at Lili from the piano, maybe to argue that she ought to take on the E.T., as Mark had been a real casualty and could use live nursing. But it was plain as day to anybody but Beau that Bruce and Lili were a big thing and the last to be disturbed.

Erich acted stiffly hurt at losing me, but I knew he wasn’t. He thinks he has a great technique with Ghostgirls and he likes to show it off, and he really is pretty slick at it, if you go for that sort of thing and⁠—yang my yin!⁠—who doesn’t at times?

And when Sid formally wafted the Countess out of Stores⁠—a real blonde stunner in a white satin hobble skirt with a white egret swaying up from her tiny hat, way ahead of Maud and Lili and me when it came to looks, though transparent as cigarette smoke⁠—and when Erich clicked his heels and bowed over her hand and proudly conducted her to a couch, black Svengali to her Trilby, and started to German-talk some life into her with much head cocking and toothy smiling and a flow of witty flattery, and when she began to flirt back and the dream look in her eyes sharpened hungrily and focused on him⁠—well, then I knew that Erich was happy and felt he was doing proud by the Reichswehr. No, my little commandant wasn’t worrying me on that score.

Mark had drawn a Greek hetaera, name of Phryne; I suppose not the one who maybe still does the famous courtroom striptease back in Athens, and he was waking her up with little sips of his scotch and soda, though, from some looks he’d flashed, I got the idea Kaby was the kid he really went for. Sid was coaxing the fighting gal to take some high-energy bread and olives along with the wine, and, for a wonder, Doc seemed to be carrying on an animated and rational conversation with Sevensee and Maud, maybe comparing notes on the Northern Venusian Shallows, and Beau had got on to Panther Rag, and Bruce and Lili were leaning on the piano, smiling very appreciatively, but talking to each other a mile a minute.

Illy turned back from inspecting them all and squeaked, “Animals with clothes are so refreshing, dahling! Like you’re all carrying banners!”

Maybe he had something there, though my banners were kind of Ash Wednesday, a charcoal gray sweater and skirt. He looked at my mouth with a tentacle to see how I was smiling and he squeaked softly, “Do I seem dull and commonplace to you, Greta girl, because I haven’t got banners? Just another Zombie from a billion years in your past, as gray and lifeless as Luna is today, not as when she was a real dreamy sister planet simply bursting with air and water and feather forests. Or am I as strangely interesting to you as you are to me, girl from a billion years in my future?”

“Illy, you’re sweet,” I told him, giving him a little pat. I noticed his fur was still vibrating nervously and I decided the heck with Sid’s orders, I’m going to pump him about what he was doing with Kaby and the satyr. Couldn’t have him a billion years from home and bottled up, too. Besides, I was curious.

VI Crete Circa 1300 BC

Maiden, Nymph, and Mother are the eternal royal Trinity of the island, and the Goddess, who is worshipped there in each of these aspects, as New Moon, Full Moon, and Old Moon, is the sovereign Deity.

Graves

Kaby pushed back at Sid some seconds of bread and olives, and, when he raised his bushy eyebrows, gave him a curt nod that meant she knew what she was doing. She stood up and sort of took a position. All the talk quieted down fast, even Bruce’s and Lili’s. Kaby’s face and voice weren’t strained now, but they weren’t relaxed either.

“Woe to Spider! Woe to Cretan! Heavy is the news I bring you. Bear it bravely, like strong women. When we got the gun unlimbered, I heard seaweed fry and crackle. We three leaped behind the rock wall, saw our gun grow white as sunlight in a heat-ray of the Serpents! Natch, we feared we were outnumbered and I called upon my Caller.”

I don’t know how she does it, but she does⁠—in English too. That is, when she figures she’s got something important to report, and maybe she needs a little time to get ready.

Beau claims that all the ancients fit their thoughts into measured lines as naturally as we pick a word that will do, but I’m not sure how good the Vicksburg language department is. Though why I should wonder about things like that when I’ve got Kaby spouting the stuff right in front of me, I don’t know.

“But I didn’t die there, kiddos. I still hoped to hurt the Greek ships, maybe with the Snake’s own heat gun. So I quick tried to outflank them. My two comrades crawled beside me⁠—they are males, but they have courage. Soon we spied the ambush-setters. They were Snakes and they were many, filthily disguised as Cretans.”

There was an indignant murmur at this, for our cutthroat Change War has its code, the Soldiers tell me. Being an Entertainer, I don’t have to say what I think.

“They had seen us when we saw them,” Kaby swept on, “and they loosed a killing volley. Heat- and knife-rays struck about us in a